Yogurt, to include the Greek Yogurt variety is both a substantial and fast growing food category. Industry sources estimate U.S. sales this year will exceed Nine billion dollars. Greek Yogurt grew 5000 plus percent from 2004 till 2014 and now makes up over half of all yogurt sales. As today's consumers seek healthier food choices, yogurt sales are expected to continue to grow.
It is estimated that 11 billion individually sized units of Yogurt will be sold in the United States in 2017. For perspective that compares to other significant and trending food and beverage categories like wine and single serve coffee. Where it is estimated that annually 4 billion standard size (750 ml) wine bottles are sold and 10 billion of the popular single serving coffee variety commonly known as the Keurig K-cup are sold each year. Merchants and manufacturers that sell products in both these categories are often promoting to their customers to buy more than one at a time. For example, wine is often sold in cases of 12. To accommodate the storage challenge that these multiple purchases create at the household level the housewares industry has developed a variety of specifically sized, holders, bins, and racks, that help the end user conveniently organize the individual containers in a way that makes them available for frequent and often daily use. These bins are largely designed with universal properties, to hold a variety of jars, baggies, cups, etc. Until now there has not been a bin that is designed specifically for yogurt.
A storage solution is ripe for the Yogurt consumer. Many Yogurt customers consume one or more individual cartons each day and many households have more than one member that do this. Yogurt has clearly become a daily staple. Fourteen individual cartons or more is a week's supply for just two people in a household who eat Yogurt daily. Yogurt requires refrigeration, and such space is at a premium and can become overwhelmed by the potential of dozens of Yogurt containers randomly stacked in randomly open areas within. Such a situation makes it harder to find the desired Yogurt variety, let alone much of what else is stored in the refrigerator. Also when yogurt is randomly stacked the potential for knocking over other items in this process is increased. And such a level of disorganization and randomness can make the already tight refrigerator space seem even more so. Refrigerated items like Yogurt are perishable and not being able to easily find products can increase the chance that when they are found they can be expired.